A.ron's passionate defense of season 1 is exactly how Lost's finale supporters feel
MichaelVCassidy
Harrisburg, Pa
@A_Ron_Hubbard Thanks so much for your great coverage of this great show. When I heard your impassioned defense of season one on the pod, I wanted to stand up and cheer (but I use a wheelchair so that wasn't happening)
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A.ron and Jim at times have adopted the hive mind opinion that the end of Lost sucks, or at least has its massive failures, without seeing how it actually ended.
From the way I've heard A.ron in particular speak about his expectations leading up to The Leftovers finale and than hearing his appreciation of it after seeing it - I actually think he would love Losts finale. The Leftovers and Lost both ended in very similar ways, while still different.
I say this all to say that maybe now you guys can understand how us who loved all or most of Lost feel when we see or hear people bash it. It's exactly how you feel about The Leftovers season one. Except maybe worse because some of the people hating on Lost think the island wasn't real and nothing that happened, happened. Which couldn't be more false.
Lost actually spelled out what it's ending was way more than what The Leftovers did. Saying flatly that it was all real and everything that happened was the most important thing to ever happen to those characters, all in clear dialog. While the leftovers left many things up for debate - which I absolutely loved. Throughout the episode, I first thought Nora went through and Kevin followed her using the LADR too. Then when Laurie showed up I thought Nora died and this was her afterlife, and Kevin shows up when he dies later (which could still be true). Then Nora told her story, I believed her, I realized Laurie just went scuba diving and came up, and this was just 15 years later. I thought it was brilliant how we can come to many conclusions.
I feel the same about some of losts mysteries. The Finale answered the ultimate question of "what is this other flash world we're seeing" - and answered it with great satisfaction, that no one I've ever heard of guessed ahead of time. Some other mysteries were left ambiguous and I loved that, just like I loved it in The Leftovers.
It's a damn shame some people will never start watching the leftovers because of a false narrative surrounding the first season. And it's a damn shame some people will never finish Lost because of a false narrative surrounding season 6 and it's end. Maybe now, a.ron will understand better those of us who passionately support Losts end the way he passionately supports the leftovers beginning.
And now we go into round 567 of The Lost Argument...
I do agree with the overall sentiment of this post however-- i was surprised to find out the NIETHER of the guys had seen the finale of LOST (i thought Jim had) so for them to form an entire opinion of the show not having seen the final season is a little suspect. But luckily for them, they just happen to be right-- LOST sucks
Secondly, I'm not doing this again.
I think a primary difference is that Lost made itself about the mystery, the connections etc. By intention, they made watching the show a puzzle to solve. It was a fun ride, but by the end they couldn't live up to their own promise, delivered on a few things and wrote off everything else as "island rules". Most people found that very unsatisfying. People who defend Lost's ending, overly focus on the actual ending. It's not the finale, or even the last season that are problems unto themselves, it's everything that led up to that and how season 6 was used to side-step the convoluted narrative of seasons 1-5 (or more specifically, 3 or 4 to 5). They wrote themselves into a corner, found a pretty dodgy way out and dropped or just wrote-off everything else that didn't fit.
With the Leftovers, the message from the get-go was "let the mystery be". There was an unexplained event at the heart of the show, but the show went out of its way time and time again to stress that the mystery wasn't what the show was about. Most of the negative reactions that I've seen about the Leftovers finale had to do with "not getting answers about X"...either forgetting or not realizing that answers were ever promised. It wasn't a show about a mystery, it was a show about living in the wake of one.
If you liked how Lost wrapped up, that's great. But there's a large number of people who fully understood it, totally "got it" and still had issues with it. They did the best that they could with the situation that they created for themselves. Lindelof used Leftovers to exorcise his Lost demons, he's been pretty open about that. Whatever enjoyment any of us got from Lost we have to recognize - as Lindelof has - that there were demons there to be exorcised.
It also bothers me on an ethical level, I don't know if they really appreciate or are as passionate about their job as much as they used to be. They've been complaining a lot about having to watch so much stuff on the lunches and whatnot and each time it makes me roll my eyes. Like people are paying you $300 to watch a single movie and are literally funding your livelihood to sit on a chair and crack jokes and mine reddit for theories for an hour or two each day and you can't even bring yourself to finish one of the biggest and most iconic shows of the generation...okay. No offense, but with that kind of work ethic, it's easy to see why they flamed out of real world jobs in their 30s.
People are allowed to not like or not be interested in shows, or not think a show was that great. Calm the hell down, Lost fans. You're like bloody evangelists trying to angrily convert everyone to your religion. Jesus.
Your point about Lost is fair enough (even if I don't agree, it's a fair point).
Your comments about work ethic are crazy, and I think that you're radically underestimating how much work goes into recording a podcast...now consider how many they put out per week, now consider that they also run a company and all that entails as well.
I have no doubt that doing this for a living requires more work and more time than whatever 9-5 they were doing before they went full time as podcasters.
Not sure why you would get personal with them all over a tv show that hasn't been on the air in YEARS. How their opinion on 1 show is "ethically" troubling is beyond me. We listen for their opinion/banter even if it doesn't agree with our own.
The guys were very open about the fact they hadn't seen all of Lost and would not. It's not their fault people commissioned the cast anyways very well knowing they would only get to choose 3 episodes to make the guys watch. And the guys would not watch like 50 hours of TV to make up for the lost Lost episodes.
That's like someone saying they will paint a room for $300 and then I get pissed when that person packs up their things and leave and the four other rooms in my house are not painted. That wasn't the deal or agreement. The Painter did his job. It's my expectations that are out of whack.
Now, I do happen to think I got the best job in the world, but you know, it's still a job. I wanted to be a computer programmer since I was seven years old. Some days I got to write the coolest, most elegant and clever code that made or saved millions. Some of that medical auditing code I wrote might have saved lives, and I left work with a spring in my step. But, sometimes I had to write the millionth CRUD screen in my career, or work on a doomed project that I knew would be canceled half way through as soon as I got out of the first planning session. Sometimes I get to watch The Leftovers, sometimes I have to watch LOST. I kid, I kid!
But seriously, you've never seen or heard a critically or popularly acclaimed something or other and hated it personally? I know you have. What are you going to do when someone pays you 300 to review it? Lie to them? Thats the easy way, dare I say it, the lazy, no work ethic way out. Or are you going to try to do your best to give a fair and reasoned review that reaches the unfortunate conclusion that you're not as into it as them? That's hard. It sucks bumming people out or disappointing them.
It's all perspective. I appreciate your support, I hope this makes you feel better about it. I'll never claim our work is really, conventionally hard, I've detassled corn in 100 degree 90 percent humidity weather back in my youth. That was hard. Loading a plane in subzero weather was hard. Knocking on doors and peddling religion for 100 hours a month was hard. This ain't that. But we do spend a lot of time doing it, and I take it seriously.
Not liking LOST isn't that out of the mainstream as far as opinions go. I get people who write me in all the time and say, they're half a season into The Wire, Mad Men, Leftovers, Justified, whatever, and then they say, "A.Ron, I don't get it. I don't see what you're seeing. What should I do?" You know what I tell them? Stop watching. Not everything is for everyone.